Orchids are the princesses of the plant world — elegant, but incredibly fussy and difficult to please. Most people, as much as they might appreciate their beauty, end up killing their orchids within a few weeks by not supplying the perfect environment for them to thrive.
If only plants, like pets, could vocalise their dissatisfaction rather than just dying on us without warning.
Well, enter Lüa, the plant pot designed to turn your plant into a pet.
Using sensors, the smart planter triggers 15 different universal animated emotions.
It measures soil’s moisture, light exposure and temperature to keep your houseplant alive, well and smiling.
Set up seems super simple. You input your plant’s type into the app which then generates a QR code that Lüa can read and interpret right away.
Lüa has 6 essential animations that help you meet your plant’s needs:
- Thirsty: When soil moisture drops under the defined threshold, you need to water your plant.
- Sick: Too much water can kill your plant too, wait until Lüa is thirsty to add water.
- Vampire: After a few days Lüa will turn into a vampire if exposure to light is not sufficient.
- Squint: Too much exposure to light can harm your plant, when Lüa is squinting it’s looking for shade.
- Cold: When the temperature drops. Lüa will sneeze the day after.
- Hot: Lüa is too hot.
There are also 9 other animations that help your plant to express its “personality.”
Lüa has a motion sensor that allows the smart-pot to follow movement with “its eyes” making it appear that it’s looking straight at you. It uses 3 other sensors to assist you in monitoring your plant’s well-being: soil moisture sensor, light sensor, and temperature sensor.
The emotional plant pot was created by Luxembourg-based Mu-Design, headed up by Vivien Muller who acts as the companies CEO and industrial designer.
According to Simon Poupard, Mu-Design’s CSO, Lüa has now raised over €220,000 on Indiegogo since August 2019 — considerably more than their €30,000 goal — after catching a lot of attention at CES2020 in Las Vegas last week.
The company says that they are redefining the way we interact with objects through emotive design.
Smart tech is indeed proving to be a useful tool in tackling the global epidemic of loneliness.
By allowing us to see how a plant feels, the Lüa plant pot could give people a real connection to something that is living, during times that real human interaction is becoming more sparse.
Lüa is still available for purchase on Indiegogo at a 34% discount for those who order before the end of March.
